Till Dawn
by Jayden Breeze
Summary: It used to be he was in love with her mystery. Now, he'll just take what he can get from her.


Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the sole property of Gainax/Studio Khara, and I in no way make any claims of ownership.

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It felt like a dream, but the throbbing from the scratches left in his back were telling him, "Yeah, this really happened." And he was kicking himself in his ass for letting it.

OK. He'd be lying if he said the thought of bedding her never came across his mind once in a while. Add in the fact that she always cast some spell over him since middle school, and you had the recipe for a fully-grown male damn near lapping at her coattails. And as much as he hated the constant rise and fall of emotions that came with dealing with the woman currently balled up in his arms, there was some kind of pleasure that he constantly failed to bury deep down inside in being used as a real-life sex doll that she could use whenever she couldn't get her jollies because her standards weren't being met back home from her flavor of the week/month/however long her current fling was going for. It was disturbingly funny; here she was enabling the thing that she hated, and he was just going along with it. The goody-two-shoes in him when he was younger would probably balk at the person he had become today if he didn't find himself running away screaming his head off first. But the crazy part was that he didn't care…he didn't want it to end.

So here was Shinji Ikari, a plethora of 'last times' later, despite always telling himself that there shouldn't be any more of whatever they had between the two of them, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom in a zombie-like fugue as the lithe, athletic, and very naked body of one Asuka Langley Sohryu lay beside him.

He was lucky that she didn't live in Japan anymore or else his torment would be unending. The redhead opted to return to Germany after Third Impact and discovering how deep her father's involvement in everything EVA was, which had left her wanting to "leave the pathetic, dickless, bastard son of a bitch penniless." Another excuse was she wanted to try and excise a few demons and get away from the 'scars' that Tokyo-3 had left behind…which he knew was bullshit, but his thoughts on that were for another time. She definitely made good on her promise, not only snatching every single penny from his coffers, but taking over her father's position as a board member and CEO of Langley Enterprises, which currently was finalizing the process of taking over NERV and restructuring it as a true scientific research facility. Since she was the one person who was most familiar with the place, she, along with Ritsuko and Maya who were respectively going to become Director and Chief Lead, oversaw the restructuring of what was to become Langley Enterprises: Scientific Division, Japan Branch.

But despite only seeing her maybe every two or three months, the need to be around her overwhelmed his desire to stay away from her. Sometimes he'd try to fight it, simply responding with the quick one sentence texts requesting his 'services' with an "_I'm busy. Sorry."_ or "_Not tonight._" But as his resolve slowly eroded with every text that came afterwards, he would find her on his doorstep and he'd allow her inside, letting her drag him into the bedroom where the night would end with her in his shower trying to remove all evidence of the previous hours from her skin, his sheets drenched in sweat, the scent of copulation hanging in the air above them, and him left with scratches that would serve as the only reminder of the encounter that took place the night before.

He knew it wasn't healthy for him. In the past, he would constantly tell himself to get over her, to never let it happen again because he couldn't take it. Well, not about what would take place, but the feelings that came afterward: the dwelling over no after-sex embrace or conversation, just her rolling out of bed and hopping into the shower, then leaving without a word. It would leave him in a lull for a few minutes, then after a few hours rest, a nice shower and a decent cup of coffee, he'd find himself back to normal (relatively) and swearing that it wouldn't happen again, only until he got the next phone call or text message that would send him back on a high until the self-loathing started to set in again a few hours later. He equated it to a roller coaster: they had just gone down the hill, and right about now was the rise up another one. And despite the growing up he had done in recent years (well, as much as a pathetic 14-year-old kid whose father let his manic depression go undiagnosed for so long just because he wanted to end the world to be reunited with his wife could…), sometimes he found himself getting what Touji called 'in his feelings,' getting close to reverting back to that little whiny bastard once in a while and on the verge of sucking the soul out of the any room or conversation he was participating in. A bad habit, one that ended way too many first dates for him in the past, but was getting better as he grew older. Somewhat.

But like Pavlov's dog, he kept going back whenever she would call for him. Maybe because as much as he tried to deny it, somewhere inside, he still cared about her. Even though he had grown a lot in the post-Impact years, part of him was still the meek, extremely introverted boy with only the need of being wanted but was too scared to reach out. But he had a feeling that she knew that already, but wouldn't bring it up. It had gotten to the point that sometimes he would hope, even if for just one second, that she would just stay by his side for at least one night. Maybe she'd fall asleep afterwards, resting comfortably beside him and he'd just lie there, running his fingers through the fiery-red curls he adored so much, like he was presently doing. Maybe in the morning, he'd even cook breakfast for her. He knew it was just a cheesy fantasy, but he had the right to dream, didn't he?

He felt the bed shift underneath him. A minute later, the sound of water splashing against the tub in his bathroom filled his ears as he turned to clock on his nightstand, flickering 1:54am. In a few minutes, she'd be scrambling out the door and attempting to avoid the walk of shame and him, in case he'd get the idea to engage in a conversation with her. He knew better than that now, when he'd previously attempt to try and get her to at least hang around and cook her a meal before leaving. Those ideas had now dwindled to a passive beat of his heart. If all she wanted was to use him, he'd gladly oblige. And you know something?

It was worth it.

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Author's Notes:

I worked on this for a while. And when I say a while, I mean a freaking year and a half. This is all I have, and I still don't feel confident in posting it (blame my constant need for perfectionism) but I haven't put up anything in over 5 freaking years since taking down my last story, which was TERRIBLE. So I needed to force myself into just putting something out in order to get the juices flowing. I'll more than likely come back to this later on and add in some things, seeing as how I actually planned for this to be slightly longer but my uncertainty keeps messing with my brain, but as of right now this is what you get, which I hope is good enough. Till then, enjoy.

Also, the gist of this story was kind of based on "Till Dawn (Here Comes the Sun)" by The Weeknd, which if you haven't heard of him by now, then you have to have been living under a rock. Fire up your Spotify and listen to the man!


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